The Eudora Times is back open for business today.

First, an update from the summer.

We are very pleased to now have an actual newsroom space in the KU School of Journalism. We continue to grow our venture even as we know we have a long way to go yet before we’re where we need to be financially.

Again, we need your donations to be able to keep going in our coverage of the community. Please consider donating to us at tinyurl.com/y4u7stxj.

Most of our team graduated in May. They are doing exceptionally well thanks to their experiences with The Eudora Times. Cami Koons is working for PBS in Kansas City. Lucie Krisman is doing freelance for The Lawrence Times, the Kansas Reflector and the Shawnee Mission Post. Nicole Asbury is finishing up her Washington Post internship. Sydney Hoover continues to do well at education reporting in North Carolina. Riley Wilson continues in law school in Texas.

I’m thankful that Chris Fortune is returning this semester as our sports editor and religion editor to help me guide the new team.

Soon, I will update our About Us page and let you know who our new team members will be. This week, they will begin doing outreach to community members in Eudora to introduce themselves as we gear back up again to restart our coverage.

I want to take a minute to remind the community of the ethics policy that guides our team. Contrary to popular belief, journalists operate under a fairly strict code of ethics. Below is part of what that involves: 

Reporters may not:

•           Interview friends or relatives

•           Accept free food or gifts of any value amount from sources

•           Pay anyone for information unless payment is required for documents under open records requests

•           Grant any source anonymity without approval from the publisher. Anonymity includes using first names only. All sources must provide first and last names.

•           Sign political petitions, participate in political parties, make contributions to political parties or advocate for political parties in any way, including on social media

•           Work undercover or hide their reporter status when working on a story

•           Participate in what they are covering without approval from the publisher

•           Audio record someone without consent

I also spent the summer working with the Trusting News team, and you will see more from that in the coming weeks as I emphasize to the new team the importance of being transparent and trustworthy as a reporter.

If you have any story ideas, you can reach us at [email protected].

We’re back open again, Eudora. We’ll see you soon. 

Teri Finneman

Publisher